I think it depends on how you believe PCT should be positioned relative to other Casters and other DPS. VPR was deliberately released without any job-specific utility tools (including personal defensives), so the only thing the job has of value is damage. The job is fragile, but you have to deal with it. A lot of this comes down to the fact that when RPR was released last expansion, a lot of players objected to a job providing utility in addition to high damage. Arcane Crest is one of the few instances in the game where a direct nerf was issued. I think if you want to justify PCT's current levels of aDPS and rDPS, then it can't offer any utility whatsoever, including personal defensives. I'll bet there are some tank jobs that would love to have access to that sort of 90s raidwide barrier, especially given that it works on all damage types.

It's fine to give Casters more movement abilities, but I think Smudge is better than a lot of current melee movement tools, when you consider that it's targetless movement and a speed boost on only a 20s recast. The only time that's not going to optimal is if they do another UAV mechanic at some point. I think if they're going to give this sort of movement to a Caster job, then targetless fixed-distance gap closers should probably be the standard across the board.

The tricky thing about Casters in general is the situation around Raise. Progression groups are still going to tend to take a Raise Caster initially regardless of setup, purely for the sake of seeing more mechanics. That may get swapped out if you hit an enrage, but you'll generally complete the lockout unless you're significantly off and there's nothing else you can really tighten up. That means if you're running a single caster, then you want PCT to be all that more enticing than BLM to justify it's use. They've basically pulled out all the stops short of giving it Raise to ensure that it gets used in raid, be it as double caster, or as your swap-in choice from your progression caster job for when you hit enrage.